Natural Weight-Loss Food: Carrots
If you don't have a bag of carrots sitting in your refrigerator, you should -- they're anything but ordinary when it comes to nutrition. Carrots contain an uncommon amount of beta-carotene. And they can masquerade as a fat substitute by serving as a thickener in soups, sauces, casseroles, and quick breads.
Because of its terrific replacement qualities, you don't have to add any cream, or fat for that matter, to cream of carrot soup. In fact, the numerous health benefits call for amending that well-known saying to: A carrot a day keeps the doctor away.
Is it possible that consistent moderate weight loss could reliably result from a diet as simple as eating more carrots? Yes!
Health Benefits
One of carrots' fat-fighting features is their respectable fiber content, half of which is the soluble fiber calcium pectate. Soluble fiber may help lower blood-cholesterol levels by binding with and eliminating bile acids, triggering cholesterol to be drawn out of the bloodstream to make more bile acids.
Carrots have few rivals when it comes to beta-carotene. A mere half-cup serving of cooked carrots packs a walloping four times the RDA of vitamin A in the form of protective beta-carotene. One raw carrot supposedly contains as much, though it's not clear if all of it's usable by your body.
Beta-carotene may ward off cancers of the stomach, cervix, uterus, and the oral cavity, and it helps prevent heart disease due to its antioxidant abilities. The National Cancer Institute is studying the whole family of umbelliferous foods, of which carrots are a member, for protective effects. Recent research results from Harvard University suggest that people who eat more than five carrots a week are much less likely to suffer a stroke than those who eat only one carrot a month.
| Nutrional Values Carrots, Fresh, Cooked |
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